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1.6.1-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club chapter 1 (bk. 6): of illness, luminosity, and lies I think I probably wrote variations on the theme of ‘shut up about the saintliness of motherhood’ a good four or five times while reading this chapter. I think I may have hit a wall with this particular theme of Hugo’s. Not to denigrate motherhood, mind you, but as a woman who is firmly and happily childfree and intends to remain so I will forever be annoyed at implications that motherhood somehow saves people from sin or lifts them above other women, especially since in this very book we have a firm counterexample in the form of Mme. Thenardier. If you mean that Fantine is lifted from her sin by virtue of being a mother that’s one thing, but that’s not at all how I read it. My reading comprehension might not be at its best, but still. Not good Hugo. Anyway, stepping off that particular soapbox for the moment, we learn that Valjean has an infirmary in his home. Which, if I’m counting correctly, makes at least four medical facilities in this town, counting the asylum. Unless Valjean lives in the hospital, that is. It didn’t seem like he did earlier, but you never know. So Fantine wakes up and finds Valjean literally glowing as he stares at a crucifix. Doesn’t the Bishop glow too when Valjean is staring at him trying to decide whether or not to steal the silver? I assume this is shorthand for ‘this character is good and holy’. Either that, or it’s a subtle way of pointing out that she’s still delirious. Fantine, by the way, is back to calling Valjean ‘vous.’ Valjean directly compares her to Jesus, though not aloud. I’m not really sure what to do with that. I suppose it’s reinforcing the whole Angel thing, which Gascon has talked about a lot. So Javert writes to Paris while Valjean writes to the Thenardiers. Neither will be particularly successful with these letters, though Javert will lose less money. Valjean would probably have been better off sending a hundred and telling them he couldn’t pay more and to send the child, though frankly I’m not sure why he didn’t just send someone to get her from the beginning. Even discounting the matter of money, it seems really unsafe to just send her off on her own like that. Maybe they assume the Thenardiers will accompany her? Valjean’s not really very good at stopping to think things through all the way. He makes decisions and grand gestures and doesn’t quite consider things all the the way to their logical conclusions. I suppose I appreciate that in a way, since he was never really taught to do that and it means that he hasn’t magically acquired yet more skills. So Fantine is getting worse and Valjean keeps telling her that her daughter is coming any day now. I will point out that the whole, ‘if your child comes you’ll get better’ thing could be seen as a parallel to Valjean’s own death at the end of the book, since if I recall correctly one of the main causes of that was missing Cosette so much. And so Valjean finally decides to go get Cosette himself but disaster is about to strike! Suspense!